XL Candy and the Dangers of Scarcity

With the GO Beyond update came the introduction of Level 50, not only for trainers but for our Pokémon as well. To power Pokémon up past 40 you need to use a new resource, Candy XL (which will be referred to as XL Candy because it sounds better.) XL Candy’s implementation has been...controversial, to say the least. We’ve had about two months to experience it and interact with it. So, what have we learned?

I’ve seen arguments floating around that try to justify XLs, or anything about their implementation, and I think it’s worth trying to account for some of them.

“It’s okay that Level 50 is just for the most invested players”

To a degree, I think this is true. It’s okay for certain parts of the game to be inaccessible. Trainer Level 50 itself and the Rank 10 (now 24) poses are a great example of this. Yes: It sucks if you really want them and can’t get them. It can be massively frustrating to not be able to reach 3k MMR to hit the top rank. It sucks that the coolest jacket of the game (don’t @ me) is gated behind having 176,000,000 XP. However, it doesn’t actually affect your gameplay. Having a Rank 10 pose doesn’t make you better at battling or raiding. It doesn’t give you any advantage, it just looks cool. However, this doesn’t really hold up for XL Candy. If you have more XL Candy, then you do have an advantage. You can run a better version of Pokémon like Diggersby, Medicham, Azumarill, etc. While it's okay for Level 50 itself to be for the most invested players, the same shouldn't hold for the Pokémon.

“If you grind more, you deserve to have an advantage”

Again, true to a degree. In effect, it already is true. The more you play, the more dust and candy you’ll have, not to mention options for good IVs. If you play for a significant portion of Community Day, you’ll probably have more than enough candy to be set to make, at the very least, one of the species for each of Great, Ultra, and Master Leagues. However, it’s not difficult to play the entire 6 hours of Community Day and not even have the requisite 296 XLs to 50 a single mon. It’s already the case that the player who grinds more has an advantage. The question, though, is what you consider a “fair” amount of grinding to “unlock” Level 50s. Current rates simply require unfair and unreasonable amounts of grinding, and the advantage provided is too high. Frankly, an even playing field is more fun for everyone! Accessibility is more fun for everyone! It is unfun to feel like you have no way to play parts of the game.

“GBL isn’t that serious. It’s not a real competitive format, so it’s fine that it’s not a balanced experience”

This take is fundamentally unfair. GO Battle League is exactly as competitive a format as any player believes it is. Given the number of players that put in effort to grind it out, not only for the rewards, but for the love of competition and of the game, it’s clear that many people consider it to be their competitive format of choice. This is especially true as GBL is the ingame Niantic-sanctioned competition format. It’s one thing to not consider GBL serious, but it’s another to say that others should feel the same.

Much as you need normal candy to power Pokémon up between Level 1 and 40, you need XL Candy to bring Pokémon from 40 to 50. Like with normal candy, you can obtain XL Candy from catching, transferring, and hatching Pokémon. However, the rates are significantly lower. Before moving forward, let’s take a quick break to go over primary methods of obtaining candies.

A note: Players under Level 40 are completely locked out of receiving XL Candy. This means that lower-level trainers are unable to even start building up this valuable resource.

Candy:

• Catch a Pokémon: 3 Candy (6 with Pinap)
• Transfer a Pokémon: 1 Candy
• Trade a Pokémon: 1-3 Candy (Depending on Distance)
• Feed a Gym: 0-1 Candy (Silph found rates to be 1/81-ish)
• Walk your Buddy (1 Candy per 1/3/5/20 KM walked)
• Hatch a Pokémon (Varies per egg distance: 5-10 for 2km, 10-21 for 5km/7km, 16-32 for 10km/12km)
• Rare Candy: 1 Rare Candy → 1 Candy

XL Candy:

• Catch a Pokémon: 0-3 XL (Unaffected by Pinap, affected by Pokémon level (and thus boosted by Weather Boost. Silph's publication on this can be found here)
• Transfer a Pokémon: 0-1 XL
• Trade a Pokémon: (Was taken away, has yet to be reimplemented)
• Feed a Gym: 0-1 XL (5/10,000-ish) Link to data on /r/TheSilphRoad here.
• Walk Buddy: Not yet implemented
• Hatch a Pokémon: 0-12 XL (Rates vary, depending on egg distance)
• Conversion: 1 XL Candy per 100 Candy
• Rare XL Candy: 1 Rare XL Candy → 1 XL Candy

Notable Cost Points:

• 304 Candy from Lv1 → Lv40 (Minimum Level)
• 268 Candy from Lv15 → Lv40 (Research Catch)
• 248 Candy from Lv20 → Lv40 (Egg/Raid Catch)
• 220 Candy from Lv25 → Lv40 (Weather Boosted Raid)
• 118 Candy from Lv35 → Lv40 (Max Weather Boosted Catch)

Lv40 → Lv50 requires 296 XL Candy, or 360 to 50 a Shadow.

For simplicity, looking at 20 → 40, it’ll take 83 catches (no transfer/pinap), 62 catches (transfer/no pinap), or 36 catches (transfer + pinap). On the other hand, that will get you nowhere near what it takes to get to 50. Thanks to the incredible help from The Silph Road’s researchers, we can confirm that the expected range for catches to 296 XLs is between 450 and 750 catches (assuming you transfer every catch). 450 average if every catch is weather boosted, 750 if nothing is. This assumes uniform distribution of levels, and doesn’t include any 100 Candy → 1 XL Candy conversions (which does end up mattering!). Realistically, depending on the species you’re hunting, the number will likely hover somewhere in between those two. If you’re hunting XLs for a Grass-type in California, you’ll have an easier time than if you were hunting something like Sableye which is only boosted in Fog. Either way though, the required catches to max something is still absurdly high.

Just as an example, take a look at your Pokédex. Look at a common species. Eevee, for example, has been around since 2016, and it had a community day. How many have you caught? All of that gives you the ability to max, what, 2? 3? of them. On the other hand, though, let’s take a look at something less common. Lickitung had a raid day event, but other than that, it’s a relatively rare species. With the introduction of Lv50, it’s become a much-desired species in the Great League. But how many have you caught? Even if XL Candy had been in the game since the start, how high could you level up a Lickitung? Let’s take that to the next step, though, and look at Legendaries. How far could you level up a Mewtwo? Look at CookedArtPogo’s attempt to grind out Kyurem XLs.

Final count: 528 catches to get 296 XL candies (including transfers). @PokemonGoApp @NianticHelp is this the intended gameplay? If so, how do you expect players to do this? https://t.co/uCctIV3HFF pic.twitter.com/VjN5RA3Myz

— CookedArtPogo (@CookedArtPogo) December 16, 2020

It took 528 catches + transfers to earn 296 XL Candy. Since you often only have at most a couple weeks to do that, earning enough XL Candy to Lv50 any legendary will be massively expensive, costing you hundreds of dollars.

So, the good and the bad of XL candy. The good is that it seems to have functioned as a great motivator. Speaking just for myself, I’m now more excited to catch things, to engage with Spotlight Hour events, and just to get out and grind. In the past, if you’ve got your 1,000 candy, you’re set, and you never really need to catch another of that species outside of “Gotta get that 100 stardust.” However, XLs provide renewed reason for people to get out and catch. Of course, it also expands the range of usable Pokémon in Great and Ultra Leagues, allowing Pokémon that previously could never reach 1500 or 2500 to get that much closer and become that much more viable! The bad, though...basically everything else. The 100-1 conversion rate for XLs to normal candy is basically an embarrassment. It almost completely negates all of the work you’ve done in the past to build up resources. The acquisition rate for XL candy is unbelievably low, requiring an insanely high amount of work to keep up with the system. And then, to make it all worse, the pool of nesting species shrunk dramatically with the start of the Seasons update. This update took out some incredibly important PvP species like Meditite and Sableye, preventing players from having reasonable access to those species in the first place!

Past that, let’s look at Rare Candy. For many rare species, especially legendaries, Rares are a significant portion of how you’re able to max them. Odds are, the majority of players aren’t doing the 87-some raids of a single species that would be necessary to max and 3-move a legendary for Master League. Players are more likely to take the 3 candy they get from each catch, and heavily supplement that with the Rares they received from the raid. However, at the moment, that’s simply not an option with XL Candy, as options to receive XL Rare Candy are incredibly limited. You can receive 1 per level up past 40 (with 2 at 45), so following this trend you’ll have 12 once you hit Level 50. Additionally, you get some from the bonus research as you level up. Being generous, we can say that a Level 50 trainer will have maybe 20 XL Rare Candy. A solid 6% of what you need to max a Pokémon out. At least at the time of writing, this is the only way to receive XL Rares. As such, in the long term, they are a relatively negligible part of the general Lv40+ economy.

In short, XL Pokémon are off-limits to players in ways that nothing ever has been before. On top of that, the level of grinding required to keep up with top players is significantly higher. Want a Level 40 Bastiodon? It’ll require some concerted effort, but with the right event you can get one no problem. Want a Level 50 Dialga, though? Get ready to shell out $500. Want a Level 50 Skarmory? You better have a really, really good nest, and be prepared to spend many hours over multiple days grinding. Want a Level 50 Galarian Stunfisk? You’re going to need to spend a lot of money on Incubators.

Equality is incredibly important to maintain in any competitive game. If your players aren’t on an even playing field, then your game isn’t effectively testing skill. I’ve discussed this before in terms of Shadow Pokémon and Legacy Moves here:

On the whole, Great League will be fine. It has a few key Pokémon (Medicham, Lickitung, Azumarill, Sableye) that meaningfully benefit, but on the whole the format will look more or less the same in terms of XL Pokémon. Ultra League will change somewhat, with Registeel, Abomasnow, Galarian Stunfisk, Mandibuzz, Umbreon, Alolan Ninetales, Skarmory, and Drifblim (among others) benefitting from XLs, but on the whole the core of the format won’t change. It’s just that some of the best Pokémon will now be even more difficult to run. It’s a meaningful reduction in accessibility, for sure, but the format will remain playable without XLs.

Master League, on the other hand, is completely and totally destroyed as an accessible PvP format. Let’s talk about why.

With no level cap, there is no incentive whatsoever to run any Pokémon at any level below 50. This means that if you’re running anything under that level, you’re at an immediate disadvantage over people who have full teams of Level 50s. Even on a smaller scale, if you’re running your Level 40 team and you run into a Level 43 team, you’re not playing the same game. Remember: you want to run Best Buddy (Lv41) Dialga due to its incredibly relevant breakpoints. Consider that on the scale of an entire team that may be a lower level than your opponent’s. If your Master League team had 3 Legendaries, and each one costs about $500 to max out, remaining competitive at the top levels of play now costs about $1500. It’s unfair, it’s unreasonable, and it’s frankly disgusting. The XL system as a whole is very important to engage with from a competitive standpoint, but it’s also incredibly difficult to engage with. 

Potentially more important than actual game balance is game feel. As long as players are having a good time, you can do whatever you want. So, how does XL Candy play into that? In order to provide valid reference points, let’s talk about other examples. For what it’s worth, though, “game feel” is a very subjective thing, and while I know this will describe my experience, and I have talked to others who have felt the same way, it certainly may not describe your feelings, and that’s okay.

When you go out to play PoGo, you don’t necessarily expect to catch a hundo or a shiny. However, they do happen often enough that you also don’t expect to not get one either. Maybe once every couple weeks. But you know that they’re a thing that happens to you. Rare, but real. On the flip side, though, let’s look at something like Axew. Axew was released just over a year ago, on January 10th, 2020. The vast majority of players don’t have one. The vast majority of players haven’t even seen one, or heard a local report of one in the wild. As such, they’re no longer even something that you, as a player, can actually hope for. If you were to go for a walk during the Hoenn Celebration Event, you can reasonably expect to catch a few Mudkip, a couple of Taillow, and maybe some Meditite. At no point would you ever say “I’m going to go for a walk and see if I can catch an Axew.” This level of exclusivity and rarity, then, makes the idea significantly less fun and exciting. You know that, unless a miracle happens, while something can happen, it’s probably not happening to you. This, then, makes it so you don’t care to even strive for it. 

So now let’s bring this back to XLs. After the Hoenn event, how much Meditite XL candy do you have? It was an existent, but uncommon spawn throughout the event, and has been a rare spawn outside of that event. If you wanted to use a hundo you already had prepped, then it would cost 76 XL Candy to power your Medicham up to 1495 CP (at 43.5). If you want to run the optimal one (rank 1 5/15/15), it takes 296 XL candy. If you were grinding, you certainly could have earned enough to max one out! But it likely took a lot of grinding. If you were playing even moderately casually, though, you’re probably going to be pretty far away from your Great League Medicham. As you were playing, did you feel like you were making meaningful progress? Did you feel as though you were being properly rewarded for your time investment, and for your catches? Did you feel as though 296 XL Candy was in reach for you, and did you feel motivated to go out and work more? I’d wager the answer to those questions is a solid No. 

Medicham, though, is only an uncommon species. Let’s talk about something rare. How much Lickitung XL Candy do you have right now? How much Deino XL? Hell, how much for something more Master League-relevant, like Beldum, or legendaries like Dialga, Groudon, or Kyogre? Do you feel like you could ever compete in non-Classic Master League in a format where everything is supposed to be Level 50? Personally, I was able to get 4 Beldum XL Candy from the Hoenn event. Given that it lasted about 6 days, I’d need 438 more days of that event, or about 25% of the entire lifetime of Pokémon GO just as the Hoenn event to Lv50 one Metagross.

Brandon Tan, one of the most hardcore raiders in the world, was unable to earn enough XL Candy to max Groudon and Kyogre in the time given.

After 7+1 days of raiding Kyogre & Groudon, I managed to collect 222 & 221 XL candies respectively after a total of 817 raids with 796 of them caught 🤩 Despite taking a longer time to do raids, I enjoy the process of catching them especially the challenge to catch Kyogre 😄 pic.twitter.com/73ePJrd4Qi

— BrandonTan91 (@brandontan91) January 26, 2021

Do you feel as though you could do more than that? Do you feel like you could do more than that consistently? Are you motivated now? Do you want to try for this? I’ve talked to a number of players who want to use XL Pokémon, but they just don’t feel like they can, and that feeling is especially strong in terms of legendaries. Being realistic, 99% of players have no hope of 50ing a legendary with the current acquisition rates in the next...any number of years.

We ran a poll on Twitter in late December, after about a month of XL Candy, asking how players perceived acquisition rates. Over 291 votes, 81.1% of players felt that rates were either Slightly too slow or Way too slow. 17.5% felt rates were just about right, and 1.4% felt that acquisition was too fast.

In your opinion, the current rates of getting XL Candy are:

— Pokémon GO | GamePress (@PoGO_GamePress) December 31, 2020

The three responses to the tweet were all more or less on the same page, though. For common spawns, it’s okay. However, we need something more, be it better conversion rates, more access to Rare XL Candy, or better access to XLs for rare spawns/legendaries in general. 291 responses obviously can’t constitute any meaningful percentage of the PoGo player population, but it is a solid sample. Players just don’t feel like rates are good enough.

At an absolute baseline, the XL Candy acquisition rate needs to be significantly increased. I don’t claim to be an expert on exactly what numbers need to be, but it’s absolutely unreasonable for them to stay where they are now. Frankly, a guaranteed 1 XL per catch seems fair. Since it only takes about 100 catches to get something from Level 1 to Level 40, 296 catches to guarantee Level 50 sounds pretty good. Additionally, the guarantee of an XL Candy from every catch would reduce the feelbad aspect of catching a Pokémon and getting 0 XL. Tangible progress markers are important in keeping players motivated, and 0XLs show up far too often.

The conversion rate of Candy to XL Candy is terrible. 100 → 1 almost completely negates past work done, and leaves a player with 10,000 Candy for a species only ⅓ of the way to 50ing something. Frankly, it might as well not even be in the game. While something like 10 → 1 would be ideal, frankly, even something like 50 → 1 would be much more playable.

The PokeMiners have found notes that imply that buddies will be able to find XL Candy when walking at some point in the future. This is a good sign, and a good start! However, even at a rate of 1 XL Candy every buddy distance (1 per 1km/3km/5km/20km), it’s still stressfully low. It would at least be a solid supplement, though, and hopefully that comes soon.

While I’m loath to support the broken Mega system in any way, it’s still really weird that the bonus candy you get from having a same-type Pokémon Mega’d doesn’t interact with XL Candy in any way. It feels like it should at least improve your odds of getting more XLs.

XL Rare Candy barely exists at the moment. This needs to change. Remember, it takes more XL Candy to 50 something than it takes normal candy to 40 something, so if XL Rare Candy is distributed in a way comparable to normal Rare Candy, then it absolutely needs to be doled out at a comparable rate, if not higher. At the very least, though, it needs to be implemented soon, so that raiders can start building up resources to prepare.

The existence of Master League Classic is fantastic. 100%, full credit to Niantic for that choice. And it needs to stay around for a long, long time, if not forever. Because of the sheer inaccessibility of Level 50 Pokémon (especially legendaries), people need a place to play without it. However, the credit ends there. Sadly, as mentioned previously, Master Premier is an incredibly difficult format to play, punishing anyone without full Level 50 teams. This is deeply frustrating, as it was previously the more accessible format, letting people play without a collection of maxed legendaries. Ideally, Master League Premier Classic would also run alongside Master League Premier, letting players without exorbitant resources compete in this format.

Please bring back useful nesting species. With the nest pool’s decimation with the Seasons update, key XL species like Medicham and Sableye have become far more rare than they have any need to be. Removing them from nests made an already difficult to come by resource even rarer, and that sucks. For everyone.

Finally, let players under Level 40 earn XL Candy. While reaching Level 40 isn’t that difficult with time investment and well-organized Friendship XP (egg your Best Friends!), it’s still another entirely unnecessary gate towards players using Level 41+ Pokémon. The system is inaccessible enough as is. There’s no reason to make it even more of a challenge.

Pokémon GO has always been a game where anyone can make steady progress to accrue resources. Those who pay money for Raid Passes, Incubators, Star Pieces, and Lucky Eggs can accelerate their accrual meaningfully. However, with XL Candy, we have reached a point where even the biggest spenders cannot spend enough to consistently optimize their play, and those who don't spend at all have absolutely no way to compete. XL Candy, if viewed as generously as possible, is meant to be an extended grind process, giving players something to strive for over a long period. But even with that interpretation, the grind is far too harsh and restrictive, and it seems most players agree that something needs to change.

In the introduction, I referred to XL Candy’s implementation as “Controversial.” That’s a massive understatement. It is, at best, incomplete. At worst, it’s dangerous and predatory. While I have no doubt that some further development to the system is coming (as we’ve already seen hints of walking for XLs), we have no reason to hope that the system, as a whole, will become meaningfully better. We, as players, need to do more than just wait and hope that it gets fixed. It’s worth trying to speak up, and speak out. At the very least, we deserve a roadmap as to what Niantic intends to do to make the XL Candy system better. While it’s certainly cool that some Pokémon can reach new heights in usability, like Lickitung in Great League, or Umbreon in Ultra, the sheer level of inaccessibility makes it really hard to feel like the entire system hasn’t just made the game worse.

We just needed to say thank you again to The Silph Road’s research group for their help in providing data for this piece. If you would like to read more on the results of their research into XL Candy, please check out the articles they have published on the topic here:

First, An Early Look at Candy XL Rates discusses their preliminary findings. Second, A Guide to Candy XL: Part 1 - Egg Hatching. And third, A Guide to Candy XL: Part 2 - Catching. They have more articles coming soon, and this piece will be updated when those are published! If you are interested in helping them to collect data for various projects, you can find the link to join the research Discord server at this link here!